Dear Parents and Carers,

I can't quite believe that I am about to write my final entry for the newsletter!

As soon as I joined the school in January 2006, I redesigned the newsletter and began what has been a mission for me, keeping parents informed about what is happening at the school and building strong links between home and school. That first newsletter was number 48 of Wistow Ways and this is number 395! I have written something for most of the newsletters and overseen them all. 

As I was feeling a little nostalgic, I thought that I would share with you what that first newsletter looked like. I had to smile that I mentioned that I was looking forward to working closely with all members of the school community in the coming years. I am not sure that I realised it would be for the next 16+ years! I am also pleased that I mentioned that I was keen to develop the good relationship that existed between the school and home. I obviously haven't changed that much - well at least on the inside.

I have such mixed feelings about writing this last blog and about leaving next week. 

Every day I feel proud of being Head of Orton Wistow. The team work that exists at the school is second to none and I see staff regularly pull together to make the impossible, possible. The children, your children, are an absolute delight. They make me smile every day and their generosity, kindness, determination and manners are all things that I admire. It is wonderful privilege to be a Headteacher as Mr Marks is about to find out. As Head, you get to shape the school to match your vision. You set the tone for how things will be done; you set the bar for others to reach. I have always believed that, as Head, you have to 'walk the talk'. I have always modelled the behaviour and attitudes that I expect from my staff and pupils. 

The best bit about being Head is that you get to make the big changes at the school. I have been able to oversee two ambitious building projects and have ensured that the school looks beautiful inside and out. I have introduced; residential trips for all of KS2, the PRIDE Code, PRIDE postcards, the PRIDE Award, Honours Awards, 2 Can Learns, Family Learning, an Annual Curriculum Evening, Transition Evenings, Class assemblies, a fantastic website, Good Attendance Awards, developed the curriculum, opened our doors to parents for lunches...I could go on. That's what happens when you have been Head for so long. One of my greatest achievements has been to identify talent in school and then to grow and develop staff in new roles. I encourage all staff to lead in school and feel very proud of what people have been able to achieve.

Being Head at Orton Wistow has been a huge part of my life. When I started, my son was about to start secondary school and my daughter was about to start school. They are now 27 and 20 years old. Looking back, there were times that I prioritised being Head of Orton Wistow over being a parent to my own children. Whilst trying to do the best for other people's children, I missed every one of my own children's sports days and assemblies. All this happened whilst I was encouraging my own staff to take the time to attend events for their children. I think over time, I came to understand that I needed to get a better work-life balance and took steps to address this. I switched work emails off my phone, shut my laptop when I got home, joined a gym, started to run and tried to avoid working at the weekends. 

Every Head puts their own stamp on their school. I hope that my time as Head at Orton Wistow will be remembered for my work to value each individual child, to celebrate difference and uniqueness, to have high expectations of ourselves and one another, but above all, to be kind and caring. I regularly hear about the success that our pupils go on to achieve in later life. I am proud to have played a part in the lives of so many children and staff to have instilled in them the importance of being Polite, showing Respect, being Independent, Doing your best and that Everybody matters.

I have no doubt that the school will continue to improve when Mr Marks becomes Head. He will be an amazing Head and will be supported by a cracking team. I will keep in touch and hope to pop up every now and again. As I am not going on to another Headship, Orton Wistow will always be the one school I led, and I will always remember when the Headteacher was me!

Kind regards,

Mr Eardley

Headteacher

^{Photo by Federico Respini on Unsplash}

Each week, we publish the latest achievements of the children at Orton Wistow Primary School. 

Year 5 Space Adventure

By Abi B, Year 5, Pandas Class

When we arrived at school (around 8:30 am) we started our morning task of colouring space pictures. At 8:40 we boarded the coach and started our journey to the National Space Centre. 

When we finally arrived, we gazed in wonder at the lit signs, the glittering galleries and the life-size spacesuits. Our first stop was the Planetarium. The Planetarium, which has a huge domed roof, has interactive keypads, so you can join in. Afterwards, the Flamingoes and Pandas split up.

We then explored the galleries and some of them were amazing! They had spacecraft landing simulations and there was a Home Planet activity and there was a representation of our Solar System! We got to enter a mock capsule, which is not actually real, so that we could see all the buttons.

Immediately, it was time for our workshop. We combined white powder and water, used infrared cameras to capture heat and used marshmallows to show air pressure. It was also very cold from the air conditioning. We were discussing living in space (most people did not like the idea of recycling the water) and we found out that the food can be freeze-dried or vacuum packed and that fresh food is a treat in space. We were also told about the many layers of the spacesuit, and we did lots of experiments to show that. Finally, it was time for lunch.

We trooped down to the crowded, busy, noisy lunch hall and gathered round the lunchbox bin where we placed our lunch boxes in when we arrived. We then ate.

We next travelled up the Rocket Tower, admiring all the galleries. My favourite bit was the water rockets. The Rocket Tower, where the real piece of moon rock is displayed, is incredibly high and has 4 floors. Also, there was a travel-back-in-time area which was set when the first space capsule landed on the Moon (1969) with radio TV’s playing and large sofas.

After that it was the end of one of the best days in the world. It took about an hour to get back, and I fell asleep (most people did)! After ages of driving we arrived at school. The day had ended.

Reading Certificates 2022

By Mrs Edwards, Reading Lead

We were so pleased to be able to celebrate with our Diamond Reading certificate holders yesterday, all 104 of them! These children have been reading consistently 5 times a week all year. We also wanted to share with you all the other certificates from the year.

The highest certificate a pupil has achieved this year (Foundation Stage pupil’s can only go as high at Platinum).

That’s 312 pupils getting Reading Certificates this year!

Well done to all of you, keep up the reading over the summer and let’s see if we can smash these number next year!

Keep your eyes peeled to see who will be awarded our Millionaire Badges next week too. These children have read over 1 Million words since September. Who will be the first winners next year?

Eco Update July 2022

By Ms Porter, Eco Lead

Eat Healthily

We have continued to promote healthy living in a variety of ways, both during class learning and meal times.  This part of our Eco code has links to PHSE, DT & Science topics.  Year 5 designed and made a salad as part of their family learning BBQ.  Mrs. Anderson ran an after-school cooking club.  The children enjoyed making and tasting a variety of different foods and also learning about food preparation and hygiene.  We also took part in the 'Eat them to Defeat them' campaign.  A different vegetable was featured each week and presented in a variety of ways to encourage children to try new foods. Foundation Stage are always busy in the garden and planted seeds to watch lettuce, herbs and rhubarb grow!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The Eco warriors check classroom bins regularly as part of their responsibility.  Lots of children bring a healthy snack in a recyclable pot now rather than plastic packaging.  You will be aware from contact with FOWS that we also promote reusing school uniforms.  In the Foundation Stage we also welcome spare clothes, especially outgrown splash suits, wellies and socks!

Ignore the car use green power

Thank you for supporting the Big Walk and Wheel competition.  We continue to be impressed with the number of bikes and scooters we see in the playground.  Hopefully, next year will be even better with the addition of covered bike racks.  We often see a dip in results in KS2 as the children bring themselves to school.  It is great that they walk but even better if they can bring their bike, this is a great form of exercise - developing muscles and minds as they negotiate their way on a bike!

As a staff team, we all try to lead by example.  You may have seen Mr. Cowles showcasing his football skills at the Summer Fayre, Miss Tansley completing her recent ‘channel swim’, and Mr. Eardley’s fitness challenges.  I completed the ‘Way of the Roses’ coast-to-coast cycle route last weekend.  It was tough cycling the Yorkshire hills after cycling in Peterborough, however, the views were amazing!

Care for our school grounds and community

We care for our school grounds in a variety of ways.  Eco-warriors carry out weekly litter picks around school and children are encouraged to keep classrooms and outside areas tidy.  We received gardening equipment for collecting Morrisons points and some year 6 children planted herbs in the Platform One area.  The Golden Mile is used daily and children enjoy spending time in Bookworm wood listening to stories or investigating the woodland.  The Outdoor learning party worked with PECT to develop the wooded area including planting trees as part of ‘Forest For Peterborough’.  We have received an award as part of our work to develop creating sustainable places.

Save water and electricity

Eco-warriors continue to check any leaking taps and make sure lights are turned off.  Staff are also reminded to reduce the amount of energy used in school, especially due to rising costs.  In light of this, we are anticipating this being one of our Eco targets for next year.

Next year, we are looking forward to working with the PHSE working party to develop a Well-being garden area as well as continuing to promote our ERICS Eco code.

Thank you for continuing to suppor

FOWS Update 01.07.22

By Mrs Francis, FOWS

As you will know from Mr Eardley's end of term email, the FOWS team have organised for our usual DJ to come to school on the last day of term for an outside disco. We trialled this last year, and it went brilliantly. The children really enjoyed ending their year with a dance and a play with their friends outside, therefore we are doing the same again this year. 

On Wednesday, the final day of term, your child can come to school in their own clothes, ready to dance with their friends on the school field! FOWS will provide each child with a snack too. 

If you'd like to contribute towards this event, we'd be very grateful, we suggest £1 per child. Please send this in on the day and ask your child to give their money to their teacher. 

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support and generosity throughout the year. 

Finally, a massive thank you must go to the FOWS committee - these events don't run themselves, so thank you very much to the team behind the scenes! 

Wishing you all a fantastic summer break. 

^{Photo by David Ngo on Unsplash}

OWPS Statutory Results 2022

By Mr Marks, Deputy Headteacher

The last time we had to complete all statutory assessments in school was back in 2019. We all know what has happened in the years since then. 

As life and school have slowly returned to normal (mostly!) we have seen the return of the statutory assessments primary schools have to complete each year. Some of these results are published more widely, others are just shared with local authorities and used internally or by Trusts.  

At OWPS we recognise the importance of these assessments, and we always think carefully about how to best support our pupils, especially when they have to complete any official tests. We also ensure that we continue to have a balanced curriculum, we do not ignore foundation subjects, and we do not become a SATs factory!  

We are very pleased with all the outcomes from this year’s assessments and the overall progress the children have made across the school. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff who have worked tirelessly throughout this year, the parents and carers for supporting the school by helping their children with their homework and reading with them and the children for generally just being great and following the PRIDE code. Below are our data headlines for 2022 

EYFS  

Children are defined as having reached a Good Level of Development (GLD) at the end of the EYFS if they have achieved at least the expected level for the ELGs in the prime areas of learning and the specific areas of mathematics and literacy. 2019 national figure was 71.8%. 

Year 1  

The phonics screening check contains 40 words divided into two sections of 20 words. Both sections contain a mixture of real words and pseudo-words. The test doesn’t take very long and the pass mark is 32. The national average in 2019 was 82%. In Year 2, any children who do not pass the test in Year One, will retake the test. 95% of our current Year Two cohort have now passed the phonics screening test.  

Year 2 

Although these results are lower than previous years and below the 2019 national averages, we were expecting a drop due to the impact of COVID-19. The current Year Two cohort are yet to experience a school year without significant disruption due to the pandemic. We had a Local Authority Moderation visit to look at our Year Two data and evidence collections. The moderators agreed with all of our judgments and the strengths and areas in need of development are clearly defined, ready for their Year Three teachers to focus on. 

Year 4 

In the summer term of Year Four, children take part in the MTC – Multiplication Tables Check. This is a quick test of 25 random questions from the 1-12 times tables. They have six seconds to answer each question. The test is completed on a computer and the scores are not published nationally. Our average score has improved on last year and the current cohort increased from 12 to 20 whilst in Year Four. They will continue to improve their times tables knowledge when they start Year Five and times tables is a focus for us at OWPS. It is also something that parents can help their children with at home.  

Year 6 

All of these results are above the national averages for 2022. The reading, maths and GPS assessments are externally marked tests and the writing is a teacher assessment.  

All of our pupils should feel very proud of what they have achieved this year and the progress they have made. These results quickly become historic, but they give us an indication of what we should be focusing on at school moving forward. We also look at the combined results from across the OWN Trust and work with the other two schools to identify key strengths and areas for improvement.  

^{Photo by Markus Wink}

The Art and Cultural Passport

By Mrs McIntosh, Art Lead

At the start of the year, we launched the ‘Art and Cultural’ passport! There were two main reasons for this. The first reason was an aim set for our work towards the ‘Artsmark’, which is the only creative quality standard for schools and education settings, accredited by Arts Council England. 

The second reason was the most important. After two years of lockdown and the closure or limited access to our wonderful places of art and culture, we felt it was important to inspire children to 'get back out there' and visit galleries, museums, and historical sites or just get creating! 

Mrs Ironside, Miss Ellis and I got together to create the passport with a focus on activities children could get involved in at home, locally and nationally that were linked to the arts or culture with a range that was accessible to all.  We are pleased to say this has been a success, and we have given out lots of stamps. In fact, it adds up to over 500 visits to historical sites, galleries, museums, theatres, sculpture parks and street parades!  

We have seen children performing poetry and songs and creating videos of mini productions. We have seen children take advantage of the sculpture park at Nene Park, or visit the ever-changing exhibitions at Peterborough museum, Longthorpe Tower and Flag Fen. We have even seen children going out of their way whilst on holiday to visit historical sites such as Stone Henge and Derwent Dam. 

Alongside this, we created the @OWPSart_culture Twitter page which promoted art and culture within the school alongside exhibitions, children's visits and ideas linked to the passport challenges.

It has been wonderful to see so many of you catch up on all the art and culture we missed during the pandemic and I truly feel our passport has had an impact, especially in the Foundation Stage and in KS1. Well done! 

Now the challenge is over we can finally send off our Artsmark application showcasing our success.

Although the passport has come to an end, I hope the ideas and activities will continue to inspire you over the summer and beyond. 

Many thanks to all of you that took part!

Celebrating Success 15.07.22

Parent Questionnaire Results 2022

By Mr Eardley, Headteacher

Thank you to all the parents who completed our Annual Questionnaire. In total, we had 146 responses which is a great result. You can find a copy of our results below as well as the latest Ofsted National Results as a comparison.

Once again, we are delighted by the very high number of positive results. Thank you! We are ‘getting it right’ for the vast majority of children and their parents and our results also compare very well against the Ofsted National Results.

We work very hard to improve the school each year. This has been an even greater challenge in the last few years as Covid restrictions have limited some of the things we like to do.

Curriculum

I was surprised that 10 parents (7% of respondents) either did not know or disagreed that we let them know what their child is learning during the year. This is an area that we have worked hard on. Parents receive a termly newsletter explaining what their child will learn in the following term as well as a termly curriculum update showing you what we have achieved in each curriculum area as well as what is coming up. On top of this, our website provides very detailed plans for each year group and each subject. You can find the pages here.

Bullying

Like all schools, we have incidences of bullying. I have not inspected a school yet where pupils, staff and parents haven’t admitted that there is some bullying during the year. We take bullying very seriously and also take a firm view when children are unkind to one another.

As you will know from our ‘Anti-Bullying Policy’we refer to the DfE and Cambridgeshire definitions of bullying:

‘Bullying is behaviour by an individual or group, repeated over time, that intentionally hurts another individual or group either physically or emotionally’ (DfE, 2011).

‘Bullying is the persistent, deliberate attempt to hurt or humiliate someone’. (Cambs. CYPS, 2007).

The policy can be found here.

We hold the Silver Anti-Bullying Quality Mark and Mr Newton is our Anti-Bullying Lead. He investigates all alleged cases of bullying, speaks to all children involved and then follows up with them later in the term to check that things have stopped. On the rare occasion when things have continued, he does further work with the children. He makes me aware of all cases and I report these anonymously to the Governing Body.

This year he has investigated 4 cases of bullying. Our questionnaire results show that 12 parents think their child has been bullied this year. Of the 12, 7 think we dealt with it well, 4 think we didn’t and 2 don’t know.

Having looked at who responded to say that their child was bullied this year, the names do not match up with our records in school. In some cases, it may well have been unkind behaviour that did not meet the definition of bullying. It was also interesting that most of the parents who said their child had been bullied were from lower down the school. We need to think about why this might be.

Please do not think that we are only concerned if behaviour meets the definition of bullying. We take a firm view on behaviour which is why 93% of parents agree that we make sure pupils behave well (Only 2% of parents, 2 parents, felt that we did not do this). However, it is important to make a distinction between what is genuine bullying and what is unkind behaviour.

I have already spoken to Mr Newton and suggested that he writes an Anti-Bullying Update at the end of each term so that you know how many cases he has investigated.

We always ask parents to let us know if they have concerns. If you are concerned that your child is being treated unkindly, you must always make their class teacher aware. If you think that your child is, potentially, being bullied, I suggest that you email their teacher via office@owps.org.uk and also ask them to forward the message to Mr Newton.

Communication

Earlier this year we sent you a separate email about communication. The results are below. Thank you to everyone who completed the survey.

Improving communication has been one of my main aims as Head, and I am pleased that 89% of parents feel that we do it well, while only 6% disagree (Main Questionnaire).

However, this is a dip on previous year's results and is something that we think we can improve.

The Communication Questionnaire showed that we perhaps communicate in too many ways and too often. I know that my heart sinks when I get lots of emails so can imagine how you might feel at times. Perhaps, in trying to communicate in more and more ways, we have overdone it!

Unfortunately, I won’t be here to address this as it is something that I would have enjoyed addressing. I have already spoken to Mr Marks (New Headteacher!) and Mrs Schneider (Digital Lead) and suggested that the school looks at communication again.

My suggestions would be that we:

• Find ways to streamline communication, perhaps via one email with links to messages for each year group.
• Explain more clearly how we use the website, Twitter, Dojo, Tapestry and Seesaw. We should make clear what is the minimum engagement we expect from parents and what is also available.
• Make sure that all classes are getting an equally good deal and that we address the imbalance that sometimes exists.

Parent Questionnaire Results - Please click on the image below to see the data table

^{Photo by Tamanna Rume}

OWPS Year 5/6 Athletic Event

By Mr Cowles, PE Lead

At the end of June, all the children in the year 5/6 classes took part in qualifiers for the Athletics event held on Thursday 14^th July. All the children took part in the qualifiers and the top three boys and girls from each class were selected per event. This led to 12 boys and 12 girls competing in each event.

Though not everyone was competing, all the children went out onto the field to support and cheer on those who were. These were the following events that took place:

• Long jump
• Tennis ball throw
• Javelin
• Sprint 60m
• 200m
• 800m
• Relay

All the children who took part did so with immense sportsmanship and made the event very competitive. We saw some amazing resilience and even teamwork, especially on the 800m when children may have been struggling. All the children who finished in the top 3 positions will receive a gold, silver or bronze certificate early next week for their achievements. Finally, a special thank you to the year 6 ‘helpers’ who made the event run smoothly.

Discover what is coming up in the OWPS Dining Car.

Read about what is happening locally, nationally and internationally.

^{Disclaimer: Orton Wistow Primary School does not endorse any products, services or activities that appear in the Community section of this newsletter, and is not responsible for any contract entered into by either party. Given the current circumstances, we would recommend all parents check with any providers regarding the status of these services, activities and clubs}